There's a lot of factors that can cause your score to go lower, even when you upgrade parts. I learned this from personal experience. :)
The greatest violator, is the stuff you have running while performing the Windows Experience wizard. If you're running half a dozen programs because of startup, or playing MP3's while running a raid in WoW, the score will be a lot lower that it should be. How good are you with "tweaking" Windows?
First off, back up your computer. Did you back it up? Better safe than sorry.
If you type msconfig in your run bar or a Command Prompt window, it will open a System Configuration menu. Inside this, go to the Services tab. Check the box that says "Hide all Microsoft services" at the bottom. Stuff will vanish in the upper box. Uncheck stuff that you are 100% certain has nothing to do with drivers or was not originally installed the machine when you first got it. If in doubt, don't uncheck it. Now go into the Startup tab. Once again, uncheck stuff that has nothing to do with drivers or the original load. For example stuff like iTunes or Adobe are fair game to uncheck.
Reboot the computer. Run the Windows Experience wizard again. DON'T RUN ANYTHING ELSE. Don't even move the mouse or tap the keyboard. Just wait for it to finish. The score might be closer to what you expect it to be.
When finished, do the msconfig thing again, and recheck the stuff you unchecked... or leave the stuff you 100% know is "bloat garbage" unchecked for better performance. :)
***EDIT***
Oh yea... one last thing. I believe Microsoft updates the Windows Experience score from time to time. Therefore a machine that got a 7.0 eight months ago, might get a 6.5 next week. 7.9 is supposed to be top of the line, bleeding edge performance for that version of Windows... and naturally, new computers slowly become obsolete the first day of release.
Nargrakhan
2 Posts
0
December 27th, 2010 10:00
There's a lot of factors that can cause your score to go lower, even when you upgrade parts. I learned this from personal experience. :)
The greatest violator, is the stuff you have running while performing the Windows Experience wizard. If you're running half a dozen programs because of startup, or playing MP3's while running a raid in WoW, the score will be a lot lower that it should be. How good are you with "tweaking" Windows?
First off, back up your computer. Did you back it up? Better safe than sorry.
If you type msconfig in your run bar or a Command Prompt window, it will open a System Configuration menu. Inside this, go to the Services tab. Check the box that says "Hide all Microsoft services" at the bottom. Stuff will vanish in the upper box. Uncheck stuff that you are 100% certain has nothing to do with drivers or was not originally installed the machine when you first got it. If in doubt, don't uncheck it. Now go into the Startup tab. Once again, uncheck stuff that has nothing to do with drivers or the original load. For example stuff like iTunes or Adobe are fair game to uncheck.
Reboot the computer. Run the Windows Experience wizard again. DON'T RUN ANYTHING ELSE. Don't even move the mouse or tap the keyboard. Just wait for it to finish. The score might be closer to what you expect it to be.
When finished, do the msconfig thing again, and recheck the stuff you unchecked... or leave the stuff you 100% know is "bloat garbage" unchecked for better performance. :)
***EDIT***
Oh yea... one last thing. I believe Microsoft updates the Windows Experience score from time to time. Therefore a machine that got a 7.0 eight months ago, might get a 6.5 next week. 7.9 is supposed to be top of the line, bleeding edge performance for that version of Windows... and naturally, new computers slowly become obsolete the first day of release.